Dagger Key and Other Stories

We took our stand round St. Ant’ony’s Key. There wasn’t no resort back then. No dive shop, no bungalows. Just cashew trees, sea grape, palm. It were a good spot cause the reef close in to shore, and that old motor launch we use for boarding, it ain’t goin to get too far in rough water. My daddy, he keep checkin’ he pistol. That were how he did when t’ings were pressin him. He check he pistol and yell at ever’body to swing they lanterns. We only have the one pistol mongst the five of us. You might t’ink we needs more to take on an entire crew, but no matter how tough that crew be, they been t’rough hell, and if they any left alive, they ain’t got much left in them, they can barely stand. One pistol more than enough to do the job. If it ain’t, we gots our machetes.

The night wild, mon. Lord, that night wild. The bushes lashing and the palms tearin and the waves crashin so loud, you t’ink the world must have gone to spinnin faster. And dark…we can’t see nothin cept what the lantern shine up. A piece of a wave, a frond slashin at your face. Even t’ough I wearin a poncho, I wet to the bone. I hear my daddy cry, Hold your lantern high, Bynum! Over to the left! He hollerin at Bynum Saint John, who were a fisherman fore he take up wreckin. Bynum the tallest of us. Six foot seven if he an inch. So when he hold he lantern high, it seem to me like a star fell low in the heavens. With the wind howlin and blood to come, I were afraid. I fix on that lantern, cause it the only steady t’ing in all that uncertainty, and it give me some comfort. Then my daddy shout again and I look to where the light shinin and that’s when I see there’s a yacht stuck on the reef.

Everybody’s scramblin for the launch. They eager to get out to the reef fore the yacht start breakin up. But I were stricken. I don’t want to see no killin and the yacht have a duppy look, way half its keel is ridin out of the water and its sails furled neat and not a soul on deck. Like it were set down on the rocks and have not come to this fate by ordinary means…

You t’ink you can tell this story better than me, Clifton? Then you can damn well quit interruptin! I don’t care you heared Devlin Walker tell a story sound just like it. If Devlin tellin this story, he heared it from me. Devlin’s daddy never were a wrecker. And even if dat de case, what a boy born with two left feet goin to do in the middle of a norther? He can’t hardly get around and it dry.

Yes, sir! Two left feet. The mon born that way. Now Devlin, I admit, he good with a tale, but that due to the fact that he never done a day’s work in he life. All he gots to do is set around collectin other folks’ stories.

The Santa Caterina, that were the name on the yacht’s bow…it were still sittin pretty by the time we reached it. But big waves is breakin over the stern, and it just a matter of minutes fore they get to chewin it up. I were the first over the rail, t’ough it were not of my doin. I t’ought I would stay with the launch, but my daddy lift me by the waist and I had no choice but to climb aboard. The yacht were tipped to starboard, the deck so wet, I go slidin across and fetch up against the opposite rail. I could feel the keel startin to slip. Then Bynum come over the rail, and Deaver Ebanks follow him. The sight of them steady me and I has a look round…and that’s when I spy this white mon standing in the stern. He not swaying or nothin, and it were all I could do to keep my feet. He wearing a suit and tie and a funny kind of hat with a round top that were jammed down so low, all I seein of he face were he smile. That’s right. The boat on the rocks and wreckers has boarded her, and he smilin. It were like a razor, that smile, all teeth and no good wishes. Cut the heart right out of me. The roar of the storm dwindle and I hear a ringin in my ears and it like I’m lookin at the world t’rough the wrong end of a telescope.

I’m t’inking he no a natural mon, that he have hexed me, but maybe I just scared, for Bynum run at him, waving he machete. The mon whip a pistol from he waist and shoot him dead. And he do the same for Deaver Ebanks. The shots don’t hardly make a sound in all that wind. Now there’s a box resting on deck beside the mon. I were lookin at it end-on, and I judged it to be a coffin. It were made of mahogany and carved up right pretty. It resemble the coffin the McNabbs send that Yankee who try to cut in on they business. What were he name, Clifton? I can’t recollect. It were an Italian name.